


It looked better on Pinterest

by Bill_Longbow



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Holidays, Multi, Not Canon Compliant, One Big Happy Family, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 02:59:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17051771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bill_Longbow/pseuds/Bill_Longbow
Summary: Steve and Bucky team up with Jarvis and the bots to give Tony the best Christmas ever.





	It looked better on Pinterest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ShippersList](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShippersList/gifts).



> Written for the Captain Handsome's holiday gift exchange, thanks for organizing this!
> 
> Thank you to Espresso-Patronum for betaing!

December 21st

 

"Are they supposed to look like this?" Steve frowned.  
  
"I don't know. On Pinterest they looked... happier." Bucky rubbed his chin as they stared at the army of gingerbread ghouls until someone walked in.  
  
"Hey you guys."  
  
As one they turned to hide the misshapen cookies with their broad backs, smiling at their boyfriend.  
  
"What's that smell?" Tony sniffed and tried to look behind them.  
  
"Nothing!"  
  
"Sam made them!"  
  
Steve glared at Bucky and pretended he didn't understand the complicated signals Bucky gave with his eyebrows.  
  
"Ohh, cookies! Gimme." Tony did that grabby hands thing he always seemed unaware of doing when something he wanted was just out of reach.  
  
"Doll, you can't, they're not..." Bucky tried, but Tony could move surprisingly fast and darted under his arm to fetch one. Before they could stop him he bit off a large chunk and chewed thoughtfully, his face carefully blank.  
  
"They're... interesting," he said after he finally forced himself to swallow, his eyes darting around to find something to negate the horrible taste with.  
  
Steve offered him his glass of OJ. "We're trying out recipes," he said miserably while Tony gulped the juice down.  
  
"Well. Keep trying! I'll just er... be in the shop." Tony kissed them both on the cheek, pulling himself up to his tippy toes to do so, and turned to saunter to the elevator. They admired his backside swinging until he went round the corner.  
  
"Next plan?"  
  
"Next plan."  
  
  
*****  
  
  
December 22nd

 

"You don't think it's too much?"  
  
"Nah, it's festive!"  
  
  
*****  
  
  
"Pep... Pep... Pepper... Yeah, I... Why would they... Oh sure, but... Just tell them... Oh you already did... you're the light of my professional life, the beacon my raft sets course to… True facts, miss Potts..." Steve saw Tony coming through the glass wall adjacent the common area. He tried to tie his tie while he held his phone between his cheek and his shoulder, which meant he was running late for a meeting.  
  
Steve smiled to himself. The smell of the ruined cookies of yesterday still lingered, but he had faith in their new surprise today. That was, until he saw Thor hurrying towards where his boyfriend was walking, lifting him off his feet and planting a huge kiss on him.  
  
"MERRY CHRISTMAS SEASON TO YOU, MAN OF IRON," Thor yelled happily while putting Tony down again.  
  
Tony managed to stay standing, barely, rubbing his mouth with one arm. "What the hell, Thor?"  
  
Thor only smiled, a tad bit evil if you asked Steve, and pointed at the ceiling where a sprig of mistletoe merrily hung from the ceiling on a red ribbon. "T'IS A MOST JOYOUS TRADITION TO PARTAKE."  
  
He turned with a clap on Tony's shoulder. "UNTIL LATER, ANTHONY."  
  
"We all know you don't talk like that," Steve muttered, annoyed, but relieved to see Tony pick up his phone and hurry towards Steve again.  
  
He smiled at him when Tony entered the common room, melting a bit like he always did when Tony seemed so genuinely happy to see him. Steve put down his knife to step around the breakfast bar and--  
  
What the hell. From out of nowhere Clint appeared to smile cheekily at _his_ boyfriend and point at the mistletoe _Steve and Bucky_ painstakingly had hung around the tower, and give Tony a gentle kiss. Thanks to Tony's foresight to outfit most surfaces in the common areas with superstrength resistant materials he didn't squeeze a dent in the counter. But when he saw how happy Tony smiled at the attention he softened, enough to not mind Natasha, Bruce, Harvey, Happy, Carol, and even Strange, who Steve suspected portalled himself randomly into the tower, stepping in front of him to give Tony a kiss during his path from the doorway to the kitchen.

They might've gone a bit overboard with the mistletoe after all.

  
Tony received every kiss with a smile and a twinkle in his eye, until he stood beaming and rosy cheeked in front of Steve.

“Your doing?” He pointed upwards to the ceiling where virtually no space without some sprig of green was left.

Steve nodded and pulled Tony into a hug. “Me and Bucky’s.”

“Well, what are you waiting for, Sugarplum of Liberty,” Tony teased, pursing his lips.

Steve was just about to close the distance when Bucky’s voice sounded from the corridor.

“THOR, ASSHOLE, WHAT THE FUCK.”

“Too much?

“Maybe a bit.”

  


*****

 

December 23rd

 

“Boys? Care to explain why my workshop is looking like Charlotte the Spider had a field trip here?” Tony’s voice was more amused than annoyed, Steve was relieved to notice.

It had been a bit of a gamble to involve the bots in this one, but Dum-E had beeped so sadly, and U did that thing with their pincer that signified pretty please and how could they say no to that? They had been lucky Tony was holed up in meetings again today, they had barely finished when Tony already sauntered in. It was so easy to lose track of time here and they hadn't begun on cleaning up yet.

“Couldn't have warned us, J?” Bucky glared at one of the cameras. He, even more than Steve, wanted this first Christmas together to be Perfect, especially for Tony, and he had taken the cookie debacle as a personal defeat. Tony finding his workshop in a mayhem of multi colored yarn wasn't within their mission parameters.

“Look!” Steve pointed to draw the attention away from the mess and towards the finished product, which had turned out pretty yarn (haha) good.

Two soldiers and three bots watched Tony pick his way through the space, careful not to trod on any of the myriad of colourful strands covering the floor, to where their art lay on one of the workbenches. Bucky stepped a bit closer and Dum-E chirped in a way that said if he had feet he would've been bouncing on the balls of them.

“What's this then?” Tony asked as he carefully picked up the first of the crafts.

“That one’s mine,” Steve said bashfully, rubbing the back of his neck. It wasn’t much, but he’d done his best. He started to fidget when Tony took his time to examine the fabric, running his fingers over it.

“For me? You made this?” Tony looked up at him with an emotion on his face Steve couldn’t decipher, his eyes glistening, and all Steve could do was nod mutely. He noticed Bucky started fidgeting too, and the bots were unusually quiet, like they were holding their breath for a scolding.

“I love it!” Tony wrapped the red and gold scarf around his neck with a grin. Steve had wanted to knit a pattern, but his hands were much too big for the knitting needles, or too clumsy if he was being honest, and just knitting a straight scarf had been challenging enough.

“Thank you, Steve,” Tony smiled sincerely, still touching the scarf, but his attention was caught by Butterfingers beeping and pointing insistently at the other two crafts on the bench.

“Sure, I hadn’t forgotten, silly nilly,” Tony patted Butterfingers on their strut. Before his hands could even wrap around the next thing Bucky called out, “It’s a stocking for on the fireplace, you can’t wear it.” Steve loved it when Bucky got nervous like this, because it reminded him of young and awkward Bucky, before he had grown into his looks and his charm.

“I can tell, Bucky bear.” Tony grinned while he held up the stocking that was a better fit for the Hulk than for him. “This one’s yours?”

Bucky smiled. “Yeah, ma learned me to knit way back when. She couldn’t keep up with five pairs of growing feet by herself.”

Bucky’s stocking was beautiful, with a simple pattern of snowflakes on a darkblue background.

“I love it, it’s perfect, Buckaroo, I’ll give it a special place.”

“You weren’t supposed to be back, we were gonna hang it on the fireplace for you,’ Bucky added. Steve knew it stung him another one of their plans didn’t work out as, well, planned.

Tony put down the stocking and rounded the bench so he could hug Bucky. “And on the fireplace it shall go. Don’t be mad I came down for snuggles,” Tony pouted, “it’s the snuggly season.”

Before Bucky could do anything like hug back or kiss Tony, DUM-E was done waiting and pulled on Tony’s jacket to get him back to the workbench.

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Tony picked up the last of the gifts. It was a sweater, with an intricate pattern of tiny Santa Clauses, reindeer, snowmen, and Iron Men. “Where did you find this one? I love the theme,” he smirked, but DUM-E chirped angrily and pointed at himself and at U.

“No way. You made this? How?” He leaned back on the bench and watched rapped as DUM-E, U and Butterfingers showed him their trick of knitting together, two with a needle in their pincer, the third weaving the yarn around it.

“You bots, you learned this just for me? How can I ever donate you to community college now?” Tony sounded a bit choked. Bucky was quick to hug him on one side, and Steve hurried across the workshop to hug him on the other. They winked at each other over the top of their lover’s head.

Mission success.

  


*****

 

December 24th

 

“Thank you, ma’am, I--”

“TONY.”

Steve’s head whipped up at the sound of Bucky yelling Tony’s name, and with a polite excuse he left the fan to make his way to where a crowd was gathering. He pushed his way through to see Tony lying on the ground, propped up against Bucky, with a man examining his leg.

“What’s going on?” Steve hurried to squat next to Tony.

“Little fella over there tried to do a trick but hasn’t found the brakes yet,” Tony grimaced as the man prodded his ankle. “I ducked so he wouldn’t brain himself on the boarding, but my old body betrayed me.”

Steve looked up to see a little boy, wrapped up so warm you could barely see his tear streaked face, with his mom, Steve presumed, trying to console him. He nodded at Bucky who nodded back. Tony was in the safest hands possible, so Steve made his way to the kid.

“Hey there, little guy, what’s your name?” he squatted next to the boy who looked at him with huge eyes.

“Jacob,” the tyke whispered.

“Hi Jacob, I’m Steve. You had a bit of an accident?”

Jacob nodded and wiped his nose on his sleeve. “I’m sorry, Cap’n Murica.” He looked like he was about to cry again, so Steve reached out to take his hand.

“That’s okay, accidents happen. They’re a good thing. You know why?”

Jacob shook his head. “I don’t like ‘em.”

“Sure,” Steve smiled, “they can hurt. But they also give us an opportunity to learn. Did you know I used to trip all the time when I was your age?”

Another shake of the head, more interested this time. “I fell a lot. But that’s okay. You just keep practicing until you get better at it, that’s what I did.” And joined a dubious science experiment, but that was not a life lesson he wanted to pass on to the youth of New York.

“Stevie, we’re leavin’,” Bucky called behind him, making Steve smile. No matter how different he looked now, he remained Stevie.

“Wanna say hi to Iron Man before we leave?” Jacob started to nod, but then his eyes went large as he looked behind Steve.

“So here’s the little warrior who has slain me so easily!” Tony had directed Bucky to carry him to where Steve was talking to the little boy, and smiled down at Jacob. “Please remind me to never pick a fight with you, young knight.”

Jacob grinned and half hid behind his mom.

“Thank you, mister Stark, I’m so sorry, one moment he’s here and the next…” The mother said, trying to look at all three of them at once.

“Meh, don’t worry about it. I’m glad he’s okay. Merry Christmas.”

After they exchanged greetings Steve made room so Bucky could carry Tony through the crowd unimpeded. On their way home in the car Steve gingerly held onto Tony’s leg, with Tony leaning against Bucky.

“I’m sorry, Tony,” Steve sighed. It was his idea to go ice skating at Rockefeller Center. He had watched the skating rink being constructed, but due to lack of funds and his poor health they had never actually been on it. He had thought it was a romantic and Christmassy thing to do. Which it was, until the accident.

“Hey, no, mister Grumpy face,” Tony nudged him with his good foot. “The only thing I’m sorry for is that I didn’t get any hot chocolate.” He settled back against Bucky, patting his thigh. “Not for lack of trying, I saw it was nearly your turn when you turned and witnessed me being a human bowling pin,” he chuckled.

Bucky hugged Tony closer and kissed his temple. “Was gonna get you a fancy spiked one too.”

“Maybe you can spike something else when we get home.” Tony waggled his eyebrows and they all burst out in giggles.

“That was terrible, Tony, even for you.”

“What does that mean, Rogers? No Christmas nookie for you.” Tony leaned forward to swat at Steve’s arm, but Steve caught his hand to kiss his palm.

“No Christmas nookie for you either, sweetheart. We’re gonna prop that leg up nice and high and cuddle.”

“Nah ah, don’t turn that pout on me, you heard the Captain.” Bucky answered when Tony looked up sad at him. He was much better at withstanding Tony’s puppy eyes than Steve, probably because he had years of experience with herding Steve back to bed, looking at him the same.

“Only if you stay with me?”

It saddened Steve that Tony still thought he had to ask this, so he gave him his warmest smile. “No place I’d rather be.”

“Try and keep me away, doll.”

  


*****

 

December 25th

 

It was nice. Spending December with his two supersoldier boyfriends. More than nice. Weirdly perfect.

He hated December. Always had. Not always. There had been a time when he was still naive enough to think that _this_ year his parents might stay home with him to sing carols and drink cocoa. But that was almost forty years ago. For forty years he had hated the month with a passion. He had hated the other kids who were happy to go home for the holidays, exchanging stories about previous Christmases. He had hated the trees and the lights and the overall _jolliness_. Humbug.

When he was old enough he didn’t bother anymore. Spending the weeks alone in the school, or later in the dorms, had its own kind of peace. No one to make fun of him, no one to bother him in the lab. That was until he learned how friendly people were if you bought them booze and drugs. From then on he was the life of the party, the best loved guest. The holidays of ‘88 to ‘98 were nothing but a faint blur in his memory. Each year Rhodey would try and convince him to come spend Christmas with him and his family, but staying at the Rhodes’ made him hurt even worse, so he always respectfully declined.

After Afghanistan, he didn’t have time for trivial things like Christmas. There were armors to be built, world hunger, and ever spreading deserts and climate change to be solved.

But then suddenly he found himself part of a team. All loners and losers like himself, with nowhere to go but stay where they always were, close to their weapons.

The first Christmas with the Avengers was a stilted affair, but Tony looked back on it fondly. Somehow they had all found their way to the common area, where Steve and Clint had worked magic in the kitchen, making them a festive meal. There had been wine and music and even if Tony hadn’t bothered with putting up any decorations, it still felt Christmassy. Like he had never felt Christmassy before.

The second Christmas with the Avengers was crashed by a huge Octo-slime monster in Hudson bay. After showering three times they ordered pizza and hung out watching Die hard. Tony had loved every second of it.

And now the third Christmas. Somehow he had ended up in a committed relationship with two gods on earth. He didn’t quite know how this had happened, and still one part of him stayed alert, waiting for that moment where dawn peeked through the curtains and it was time to wake up. He gave that part the finger and tried to find a more comfortable spot in bed, his ankle hurting more than he tried to show.

His boys were concocting something in the kitchen, another surprise, he was sure of it. He grimaced at the remembered taste of the cookie he had tried, but just the fact that Steve and Bucky had tried was enough to warm his battered heart.

He shifted again when the door to the bedroom opened, and he quickly hid his grimace. Instead of a person, though, a tree entered his bedroom. A fully decorated Christmas tree, to be precise, followed by a blond super soldier who put it next to the bed.

Clint was next, with enough cushions in his arms to hide his face, followed by Nat who carried a few and winked at Tony and his surprised look. They both dropped down on the cushions at the foot of the bed.

Bucky entered, with a trolley laden with breakfast foods, and behind him Thor carried a half sleeping Jane and put her in the bed next to Tony. “Sorry, Anthony. Mayhaps it’s a genius trait to sleep in?” He whispered, grinning at Tony’s answering eye roll.

Tony hadn’t even noticed Bruce coming in until the bed dipped on the other side and his science bro gave him a soft smile, his hands cupped around a steaming mug of tea.

It was eerie how quiet everyone was, like some spell hung over the bedroom, and Tony’s heart grew three sizes at the look of sheer joy on Steve’s face, who stood watching over them next to the tree. Tony only now saw they were all wearing sweaters knit by his bots, and he choked up again. This was his family. His family by choice, _their_ choice. Not because fate had brought them together through the most incredible ways imaginable. These people chose to spend Christmas with him because they wanted to, and if that wasn’t the biggest gift of all, he didn’t know what was.

Bucky probably saw he was trying not to cry and took pity on him, because he broke the spell by pushing the trolley closer to the bed.

“Come on, people, Stevie and I haven’t slaved in the kitchen for you to let it get cold, plate up.” He leaned over Jane to give Tony a kiss and waved at the food. “See anything you like?”

Normally Tony would’ve been over that innuendo like jelly on a sandwich, but not now. He looked around at his friends and lovers and could only nod.

“A whole lot.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always greatly appreciated!
> 
> Or join us on the 16+ [ Stuckony discord server ](https://discord.gg/jtXcc3n) for all things Tony, Bucky and Steve!


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